Eurotrip: Grottes de Choranche

I went on a day trip with my program two days ago to Les Grottes de Choranche (the caves of Choranche), so I can talk about that for now. Choranche is a very small town just over an hour drive from Grenoble, but we didn't get to spend any time in the actual town. The cave entrance is only a small, just over 1 meter, opening where a creek flows out, but the inside is spectacular. Unfortunately it was hard to get many good pictures because of the dim lighting, but it was quite an experience. We only saw the main areas of the cave, but it still hasn't be completely explored. The cave was saturated with stalactites and was practically filled with shallow pools of water.

Some cool formations in the cave floor

These large salamanders are native to caves of this region and live over 80 years

Where the tour stops and the cave continues on...

Cool staircase carved out of the cave leading to the light show cavern

The main cavern, sorry it's dark. My other pictures here were blurry, but this is only half of it and it's covered with a layer of water. The bright light is the small opening outside.

The final area in the tour was a cool sort of light show that slowly revealed the huge cavern with colorful lights and figures dancing along the walls (I didn't get any good pictures of it). Afterwards, we had some time to explore the paths outside of the cave. I thought that it was almost as much fun as the cave because there was a beautiful view of the precipitous mountains and a sizable waterfall whose source is a subterranean lake. The creek that connects the two is engulfed by moss and trees. It was beautiful! Here are some pictures, but check facebook for more!